


By The Throat

by riolu



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon Continuation, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fix-It, Post-Finale, Post-Series, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-08 22:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10397349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riolu/pseuds/riolu
Summary: The Machine has risen from Samaritan's ashes and Shaw is left with a life that is more or less typical. But the Machine has made Shaw a promise, and there isn't anything Shaw won't do to see it through.





	1. Tether

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still holding out for a Shaw/Root spin-off miniseries, so this is kinda what i might like to see

_[ Locating asset… ]_

_[ …Analogue Interface found… ]_

_[ Asset injured. Alive, status unclear... ]_

_[ …Visuals obscured, switching to communication link… ]_

 

“Hey, sweetie.”

Shaw groans over the ringing in her ears. Her visions swims, though she can see the shards of glass scattered around her, splattered with blood like the microscope slides she hasn’t used since medical school. She lifts her head off the floor to find that’s about all she can move, because a desk has flipped over onto her legs. There’s a dead Russian sharing the desk with her, and his crushed upper torso is probably the only reason Shaw has use of her legs at all. Delicately, she twists her ankles and slides out from underneath the gnarled metal. When she stands, the air of the office building is hazy with debris.

“How’s the head, Sameen?” Shaw fingers come away from her skull bloody. “Well, besides the usual disorders, of course.” Root’s voice is cheery coming from Shaw’s earpiece, and it causes a curdling in her gut that Shaw knows is not from a concussion.

“Where’s our number?” Shaw replies in lieu of an answer.

“Ten minutes from the train station.” A clattering behind draws her attention, but it’s just another Russian grunting into the splintered, dusty drywall that has fallen over him. Shaw knows he has a bullet hole in his shin he can’t risk walking upon. Still, she checks her clip for an ammo count. Shaw tries to sort out the exit, markedly aware of the pause on the other end of the comms. “You can still make it.”

“No,” she says. “I told you before that this… _arrangement_ ends as soon as she’s safe.”

“I’m staying with you until you’re clear of the building, at least.” The appropriation of Root’s overprotective streak is impeccable…and annoying.

“Then you’d better start making yourself useful,” Shaw says in a deadpan. “Where’s the asshole that threw the grenade?”

She’s moving through the hallways with purpose now, and Shaw firmly tells herself that she’s imagining the cheerful relief in that voice when it fires out, “Two floors below you. He’s with another hostile, so that’ll be fun.”

Because otherwise? Otherwise, Shaw starts to forget that she isn’t talking to Root.

\- - -

She does her best to blend into the train station, but the girl has always been sharp, and Shaw is spotted loitering in the shadows. “ _No,_ ” Shaw warns, but Genrika Zhirova tackles her in a hug anyway, her bird’s nest of blonde curls tickling Shaw’s nose, because Gen has shot up into a gangly teenager. Her chest constricts at the thought of everything Shaw’s missed—of everything she’s going to continue missing—because she’s shipping Gen off to Logan Pierce.

Gen shuffles back and peeks around Shaw, sheepish.

“The others aren’t here,” Shaw answers her unsaid question.

“The dog, too?” Gen’s lip is taking on the shape of a pout, and Shaw really can’t deal with that right now.

With her fists stuffed in her coat pockets, Shaw shrugs. “Sorry, kid. Had to get here in a hurry. Your father’s men were a little more put-together than my usual opponent.”

Gen drops the pouty teenager act and examines Shaw’s face with startling acuity. “Are you okay?”

She scoffs, a deflecting gesture. “I said they were a _little more_ put-together, not a real threat—”

“Shaw…”

She can’t quite bring herself to look at the girl, yet Shaw forces an inhale, long and slow, and drops to eye-level with Gen. “Your father won’t bother you anymore. Him and his men are going to see a lot of jail time.”

Gen’s eyes are downcast, her voice small. “Will I ever see you again?”

“Listen, if you ever need to talk to me…” Shaw’s gaze drifts up to the security camera overlooking their terminal, so she knows her request is being heard. “…just pick up a payphone.”

It is cryptic, but Gen always loved puzzles, and her eyes alight with questions that Shaw knows she’s determined to sort out herself. If she has any more to say, the train conductor calling for last-minute boarders puts an end to it. When Gen turns to look, Shaws grips her by the forearm. “And don’t let me hear about you getting kicked out of any more boarding schools, do you understand?”

 In answer, Gen sneaks in another hug. Affection floods Shaw, leaving her to awkwardly pat at the girl’s shoulders before Gen dashes off.

 The peace lasts only a second.

 “Sameeeen?” Root’s voice is low, conspiratorial, like she’s sharing a secret. It makes her heart quicken and Shaw hates herself for it.

 “I said that Gen was the exception. One number, then we go back to the old way again.” Root starts blathering off a horrible imitation of the robotic, chunky voice Shaw has heard so many times over so many payphones. “ _Root,_ ” Shaw snarls, tone dangerous, and doesn’t bother to correct herself.

 “Fine,” she says, clipped. “But Shaw, honey? The girl stole your wallet.”

 - - -

 New York’s streets are stuffy, even this late in the afternoon. The inside of the diner isn’t much better, but this is where Fusco and Lee want to go, and she owes them for watching Gen while Shaw took care of the girl’s estranged mobster family.

 The bacon cheeseburgers are good, though, and it’s fun to pretend she’s slipping Lee sips of her beer while they watch a hockey game on the big screens. Lee likes to play along, if only to see his dad get red in the face. Shaw decides she likes him immensely. Yet, she can’t tell if the feeling is mutual; the kid seems to walk on eggshells around her most times. Fusco says he always asks about her, ever since the night they both nearly died. Shaw doesn’t know what she thinks about that.

 Tonight, Lee is in high spirits. He eggs on Fusco at her prompting, shouts age-appropriate insults at the TV, and asks Shaw about her work (her cover identity in security, not the Other Thing). She doesn’t even, in fact, hate the noise and the crowd. She’s dangerously close to having a good time, and Fusco apparently notices her pleasant mood. But he’s wrung his straw wrapper into the most unrecognizable of shapes, leaving Shaw to wonder what he’s wanted to say all evening.

 During a lull, he clears his throat. “Look. Lee’s got a game coming up this Saturday, one of the last of his season. It would mean a lot if you made an appearance.” He’s awkward about it, like he’s steeled himself against an icy and swift rejection.

And Shaw realizes that he is not asking for his own benefit. “Yeah,” she accedes. If Fusco’s eyebrows rise any higher, they’ll get lost in his forehead wrinkles, so she tips her beer at him instead of pointing in warning. “Don’t gape at me, Lionel. And there are no promises. Never know where the numbers will take me.”

“Yeah, I get ya. You hear from them yet?”

This is the song they perform every other week, titled “ _Where’s John and Harry?”_ and it always ends on the same note: “Nope.”

This time, Fusco fixes her under his Cop Squint. “You hear from any of ‘em?” This is a different tune. Regardless, the implications are clear and Shaw glances at Lee, who’s preoccupied with the game. Fusco sends him to the bar for more peanuts, anyway.

“I do a lot of listening,” Shaw offers, when Fusco turns expectant eyes back on her. “But mostly I just tell her to shut up.” A long pull from her beer gives her the confidence to add, “The God Mode sucks ass.”

Fusco doesn’t pry more into that and she is grateful, but she’s made uncomfortable when he asks, “But you’re still getting numbers, right?”

“I’m kept busy.”

“I just—you don’t ask for a lot of help, y’know? Even with Professor Mousey I felt like I was being wrangled into lookin’ up NYPD secrets for your nerd herd on a daily basis. And this is, what? The second time you’ve rung for me?”

Shaw watches some man in black and gold drive the puck down the ice. There’s a collision, and then punches are flying. The diner patrons rise to their feet, yelling at the TV. Shaw sees Lee clamber atop a bar stool to get a better look and she sips her drink.

The commotion doesn’t faze Fusco. “It just feels like I’ve been cut off.”

Shaw finally looks him full in the face. In truth, Fusco’s been forced into a kind of early retirement from Team Machine. What she doesn’t say, though, is that state has been more or less mandated by Shaw. _She_ receives the numbers in New York. She won’t keep secrets from Lionel Fusco—that was always Finch and Reese’s prerogative, their mistake—but neither will she share their burdens. The NYPD still has enough work to handle recovering from Ice-9; it shows in the amount of numbers she’s getting.

Fusco, however, thinks that her look is a patronizing one, so he puffs up. “Look, I talk a lot of shit, and weren’t always a fan of the ways Thing One and Two kept info from me. But I’m not ready to hang it up.”

Shaw stares at her cold French fries and considers. “I am not keeping things from you, Fusco,” she starts, slowly. “If you want work, I’ll throw you work. But we’re not fighting a war anymore. There’s no HR, no terrorists. No evil rival AIs. Just people doing bad things to each other. You don’t have to pick sides now. You can just be a cop—or a dad.”

Fusco leans forward and licks his lip. “Thing is? That’s the way it always was before the super villains were dragged out. It’s what I’m used to.” He inclines his head. “It’s what I’m good at. You don’t gotta be soft on me.”

Shaw finishes off her beer, her brows hitched in disbelief. “You flatter yourself, Lionel. Maybe I just find you useless.”

“Y’know, the big guy said a lotta the same bull—but how many times did I save his ass? More than can be counted, that’s for damn sure. There’s no reason you gotta do this alone.”

“I’m never alone, Lionel, not really.”

The silence splits a chasm between them, and she lets Fusco flounder a minute in the uncertainty, watches him struggle to find his next words. Shaw ends his suffering by getting to her feet.

“You want work? You gotta answer your damn phone the first time I call you, for starters,” she says. Fusco looks absolutely affronted, but Shaw doesn’t want to hear about his day job. “And I’m gonna need to bluejack your phone. Probably put a tracker on your car, too. For your safety, of course.”

Whatever peevishness he is feeling over her demands is buried under the smile he’s poorly trying to hide. “What, like you haven’t done all that already?”

She grins at him, all teeth, and leaves.

\- - -

Two weeks later and it is finally raining more than it is snowing…or hailing, or some awful combination of those things. Shaw wishes it were colder, because then maybe she’d be numb and wouldn’t feel so acutely the way she is bleeding out into the streets of a Manhattan dead zone. A grubby curb serves as her pillow, and Shaw watches clouds of her breath swirl over dirty concrete. She thinks she might have a better chance if she can just drag herself the three yards into a circle of lamplight, then her slick fingers slip off her gunshot wound, which forces all of her concentration on maintaining pressure. Her arms are shaking—her earpiece is silent.

She was shot over paintings. _Paintings!_ Quarter million dollar paintings that were forged by her latest number, maybe, but the fact infuriates her nonetheless. Shaw can only stew in her rage and fight the unconsciousness edging into her vision.

She doesn’t know what miracles are pulled that leads Fusco to her, but he saves her life that night. He flashes his badge at the EMTs when they won’t let him in the ambulance, yells a little until they acquiesce. He sits stock still in a corner of the bus, her blood on his shoes and shirt collar, his hands twisted together so tight his knuckles are bone-white, and Shaw knows he’s thinking of Carter.

He doesn’t touch her, thank God, or say something mushy. Shaw lets the blackness burn through to the center of her eyesight.

\- - -

When she wakes up, Lee is curled into a chair by her bedside, fast asleep. His father’s hideous jacket is draped over his shoulders, and the lightning in the room is kept low. Fusco bustles into her hospital room with a coffee and an apple juice. He starts when he notices Shaw is awake, but she just glares at the drinks. “Give me,” she says.

“Um, which one?” Shaw cocks her head and makes demanding grabby-hands at him. Rolling his eyes, he just hands her both. “Can’t imagine either of these things are doctor-approved.”

“I am a doctor,” she says as she twists off the lid of the juice.

Lee stirs into wakefulness, scrubbing bleary eyes at them. “Shaw, you’re awake,” the boy says.

“You like coffee, kid?” Shaw asks casually, like she doesn’t have eight stitches in her side.

Lee sends a shy glance towards Fusco. “Yeah, but my mom—” The cup is shoved under his nose and Fusco rolls his eyes again but offers no objections. Lee takes it with a faltering, confused smile.

“Can you get me and your old man some more, too?”

“Sure, Shaw,” Lee says, and slides out of the room.

“Sorry,” Fusco starts explaining after his son has left, “he sorted out what was going on when I called him to say I wouldn’t be home. Threw a damn fit til I let him come.”

Anger is simmering just under her skin, thick and heady and she’s barely keeping her tone civil, although it has nothing to do with Fusco and his inability to control his son. “C’mere. You got the time?”

“Uh—” Fusco shuffles closer and pulls his phone from a pocket. “8:11 AM— _hey!_ ”

Shaw snatches the phone from him and begins punching in familiar numbers. “Mine’s broken,” she tells him.

“Yeah, ‘cause it probably saved you a kidney! The surgeons were picking display glass from your guts all night.” Shaw’s lips pinch tight as she lifts the phone to her ear, and she further ignores him when he mutters, “You could have just asked.”

 "I know you’re there,” Shaw says into the phone.

“It’s good to hear your voice, Sameen.” Not-Root is poorly concealing her relief. “Nice coincidence that the security alarm in the house of Manhattan’s best surgeon went off last night, so she was wide awake when she got the call from the hospital.” Also poorly concealing her smugness. “Is our pact of silence finally over?”

“I’ve been working the numbers, just like you asked,” Shaw says with no small amount of venom. Fusco looks a mite shell-shocked.

“Sweetie, I never had to _ask_ —”

“ _I’ve been working the numbers_ ,” Shaw plows on. “I’ve been your obedient pet, playing nice, pretending everything’s gone back to normal. Now, I very just nearly died, so I want what I asked for three months ago.”

“This isn’t a road you can turn away from. Please, think over your—”

“I’ll start pulling aside anyone who even remotely looks like a Samaritan agent until I find her. I’m already on the road, so you’re either gonna help me drive or I’ll run over every single person in my way.”

There’s a pause on the other end. Shaw can’t work out if it exists because it is what Root would have done or because the Machine is taking that long to calculate a response. She bets on the latter. Then, finally: “…Rest. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

The call disconnects and Shaw feels like a weight has sloughed off her shoulders as she sinks back into the pillows. Fusco fidgets by her side. “What are you looking for?” he asks, as if it takes considerable bravery to speak right now. Maybe it does. She probably looks utterly unhinged.

“Root’s body.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me at littlespoonasami.tumblr


	2. Leave a Trace

_[ Evaluating timeframe… ]_

_[ 5:47 AM: five days after the Manhattan incident. ]_

 

She awakes in a sweat and with a flare of pain so sharp she’s left gasping and grasping at her side with shaking hands. The bandages are intact, there’s no blood, she’s home, and she knows she’s okay. Shaw knows this, but she finds her two first fingers are pressing into that spot behind her ear regardless. It’s only after she has grounded herself does she realize her phone’s been ringing, so she jabs her thumb on the ‘speaker’ button before the call cuts out.

“Sameen? …Shaw?” 

It’s Root—well, no, of course it’s not. Of course. Shaw’s chest is still heaving, so the Machine can surely hear her breathing on the other end.

 “…You were calling for me,” she says.

 “ _I called for—_ ” Shaw can’t finish the sentence. She presses her fingers into the spot more firmly, enough to bruise. Adrenaline and rage pound against her fingertips.

 “This is real,” Root says, as if she could see.

 “Are you watching me?” Shaw grits out. “In my apartment?” She skims her room for something that might allow the Machine that kind of surveillance, despite the fact that her nausea is making her vision blur. Everything is still as her phone casts a soft glow on the ceiling above her. Somewhere outside, the lid to a trash can rattles as it’s slammed shut, and illumination from the streets below are dimished into just a few bars of light by the stranglehold her blinds have over her windows. In one such bar, Shaw can see the sheen of sweat over a goose-pimpled arm, glowing silver in the low light, and she wills her breathing to become steady.

 “No, sweetie. Only ears from your device.”

 Shaw doesn’t like the implications of a Machine that knows her conditions and habits so intimately, but she can’t bring herself to hang up. Sighing, Shaw closes her eyes and falls back onto the pillows.

 “Shaw, I am sorry. I realize I overstepped boundaries here—” The apology continues. It’s Root’s voice but it is certainly the Machine speaking here, and that’s the most reassuring part of it all. Shaw feels no small matter of pride over this super computer issuing her apologies, so she waits until it’s over, and then some.

 “Your approximation of Root is, what?” Shaw asks to the open air. “Ninety-eight percent correct?”

 “99.6%.” Shaw knows the number, she just likes the way Root says “six.”

 “Did you know that woman couldn’t wink for shit? Like, was always using both eyes. Even when she was doing it on purpose, she looked like a damn buffoon.” With her forefingers behind her ear and her thumb over her pulse, Shaw feels her heart rate steady and her pain ebb. “She also drove with the seat pulled up too close to the steering wheel; drove me nuts. Good on a motorcycle, though.”

 “And a horse,” the Machine supplies.

 “A _horse?_ ”

 “Texan,” is the quick answer, and Shaw laughs dryly.

 After she feels the smile leave her face, after the phone remains quiet a moment, she says, “I could never figure out what food she liked. She always turned it into a weird innuendo.”

 “Why, Shaw…” The voice is sugary and coy. “Were you planning a date?” Shaw is scowling fiercely into the darkness, although there is no one to see. She contemplates ending the call but she would have to get up to do that, so she lets the Machine suffer her silence. “Sometimes, Samantha Groves would purchase pints of mint ice cream,” she says eventually. “She was content eating wherever I lead her, but she would make exceptions for this. I believe it was a favorite from her childhood.”

 “Mint? That’s disgusting,” Shaw says, fondly. The silence this time is pleasant, and sleep is tugging at Shaw’s consciousness when her phone’s morning alarm goes off. With a groan, she shuts it off.

 “…I suppose that’s enough to round up my approximation to 99.7%,” the Machine says.

 Shaw replies, “You got a lot to learn,” and settles back into her pillows. “And no numbers, right?” She’s asking for clarification because she knows that the Machine has forced a reprieve on her, at least while the Machine prepares Shaw’s request.

 “No, not today.”

 “And my flight leaves Friday?” That question is weighted, which is noticed.

 “I won’t break my promise,” the Machine says.

 Shaw nods. For a heartbeat, she marvels at the way she so readily acquiesces. Maybe she doesn’t have a record for being a team player, or for obedience, but then again, she has always gone to extreme lengths to protect this entity, even when she only knew it as Research. “Then I’m going back to bed.”

 “Of course.”

 “And no more midnight calls,” Shaw says. “Mind your own business.”

 There is considerable warmth in the voice that replies to her, lilting, as if the speaker is smiling: “Sleep well, Sameen,” Root says.

 And Shaw falls asleep wondering how long an ASI grieves.

 - - -

 “Washington DC?” Shaw glares down, incredulous, at the boarding pass that is handed to her from the chipper airline attendant behind the ticket counter. Her eyes cut toward a security camera, to make it clear that that question isn’t rhetorical.

 Her phone buzzes. Shaw tips the screen toward her from within her pocket. ‘ _Answers found there_ ,’ the text reads.

 “You, Root, Finch,” Shaw mutters, “even Reese, all a bunch of cryptic assholes. The only honest ones were Carter and Fusco. And now I just have Fusco.”

 Her phone buzzes again.

 ‘ _;-)_ ’ is all that’s in the message.

 “Um, excuse me, Ms. Gray?” the attendant calls out to the lobby. Her brows are furrowed as her eyes scan something on her computer screen. Dutifully, Shaw answers to her alias. “I’m so sorry—this is just the strangest thing. There are actually two tickets for you here. I don’t know how I missed it.”

 Shaw takes the second ticket, her movements stiff as realization dawns. “No,” she groans.

 The other woman falters like a flustered child at that dismissive syllable. “Enjoy your flight?” she tries hopefully.

 “Hey there, Maybelline,” comes a voice from the other end of the lobby.

 “ _No_ ,” Shaw says again, more firmly. She spins on her heel while the attendant opens and shuts her mouth not unlike a fish. Lionel Fusco strides up to her, waving cordially. He’s ditched his jacket and ugly tie, leaving him in a ruffled dress shirt that Shaw assumes he’s worn since yesterday. That’s all par for the course; what definitely is _not_ usual, however, is the goddamned bag he’s carrying.

 “That for me?” Fusco asks, reeking of easy, pleasant comradery, and reaches for the other ticket. But Shaw’s grip is a vice and she tears it away, using the momentum to turn her fury upon the security camera.

 “You have got to be joking me,” Shaw positively seethes through her teeth, much to the befuddlement of the airline employee—and anyone else watching.

 As if her skin was made of bubbling magma, Fusco does this bizarre hover-hands thing around her shoulders. “All right, Grumpy Gills, let’s get you some coffee. Yeah?” Fusco mouths an apology to the woman behind the counter and begins directing Shaw away from the lobby. Since she might literally bite the guy if he touches her right now, Fusco and Shaw move like a pair of the same polarized magnets, pushing on one another with invisible force.

 Fusco manages to herd Shaw into a hallway. “What are you doing, yelling into cameras like some crazy person?” He’s firing glances behind them as he speaks, as if men in white coats are going to come scouring the airport for them.

 “You know now that it’s not crazy,” Shaw says.

 “Maybe, but _no one else_ knows that there’s a robot who assumed the personality of a dead hacker psychopath listening to everything they say. You look batshit.”

 Shaw’s eyes find Fusco’s face, and she knows her expression is a dark one by the way he swallows and his lips form a thin, petulant line. His shoulders are held at a tense angle, but there is concern in his eyes, too. “Where is Bear?” she demands. “I dropped him off with you not four hours ago. And now you’re here.”

 “Lee took the dog with ‘im when he went to his mother’s,” Fusco says.

 “What.”

 He tips his head and assembles his face into a stern frown. “My ex’s husband’s got a nice house with a nice, big yard. He’ll love it; it’s fine.” Shaw’s glower has not wavered, so Fusco shows his palms in a placating gesture. “Look, Looney Tunes set it all up. Texted me basically as soon as you left.”

 “Yeah, I figured as much already.”

 “Jeez, so what is with that face, then?”

 “I want an explanation,” Shaw says, stilted, “but I don’t want to hear her voice. I might just drive her subway train into a brick wall if I do.”

 Fusco extends his hand toward her. “Lemme talk to her, then.” His phone rings and its ringtone is the theme from Looney Tunes. “Oh, right,” he says as Shaw rolls her eyes. He picks up, listens for a second, and keeps his gaze on Shaw as he replies, “Sure, but I’m having a tough time tellin’ that to your girlfriend. She will actually strangle me with an oxygen mask before we land.” Shaw feels a vein in her jaw start jumping. “Yeah, touchy is a word for it. But you gotta give her something or she’s gonna start tossing your Playstations into the sewers. Also the ringtone is real funny, by the way.” Fusco pulls the phone a little bit away from his face. “Okay, she has a message: ‘He’s staying in DC but you aren’t.’” He blinks. “Wait, _what?_ Staying?”

 Shaw forces a rueful smile.

 - - -

 She takes the window seat, because fuck Fusco, and resists the temptation to order something strong so she can just sleep through the flight. Her gunshot wound hasn’t exactly healed yet, and she took her pain meds in anticipation of being cramped up in an airplane for a while. When she rests her head against the window and feels only a twinge of discomfort in her side, she’s thankful for it.

 Fusco, though, is practically vibrating in his seat beside her. “She tell you how she worked it all out so I could be here?” he asks.

 ‘I don’t care,’ she wants to say. “Ugh,” is all that comes out of her mouth—which he apparently takes as consent to blab her ear off. He tells her about how he got an anonymous tip in the form of an email signed by “Nutella.” Well, it wasn’t so much as a tip as it was a weird riddle, which for the life of him he could not figure out until literally his and Shaw’s conversation earlier today. That was when he knew it was the Machine helping him, and the tip provided the answer to the case he was working on. He got a text, just the name of a judge, and lo and behold Fusco was able to get an arrest warrant within the hour.

 “But, while I was leaving to carry out the warrant—” Fusco patters on.

 “Oh my god,” Shaw says.

 “What?” He prods. His tone is put-upon. “I know you’ve got that ‘I Hate Everyone Equally’ thing going on, but I didn’t realize how much that applied to me personally.”

 “It isn’t personal,” she says, and means it. Mostly. It was just—…

 The moment she picked up that payphone, almost four months ago, and heard Root’s voice giving numbers on the other end, Shaw had let herself believe things could return to normal. They talked a lot then, her and the Machine, and it helped initially. But things weren’t okay with Shaw, not while there were still Samaritan agents out there, and certainly not while they still had Root’s body. The Machine didn’t agree with Shaw’s need to put her to rest, and they argued bitterly. There was something extremely disturbing about arguing over what should and shouldn’t be done to find Root with an entity using Root’s voice, and it was more than Shaw could handle. That’s why she’d stopped talking to the Machine.

 Then Gen’s number came up again. Making an exception for the girl was an easy decision, really. In the end, however, it only renewed Shaw’s need for answers.

 So no, it isn’t personal. It’s—well. It’s selfish.

 Shaw has been thinking about the day she could hit the road in search of answers for months. None of those plans involve a second party besides the Machine, because an incessant part of her wants to bring Root home herself. And most definitely none of them involve the NYPD detective whose life she is trying to return to normal.

 Fusco is staring at her. Infuriatingly, he might even be pouting.

 She rolls her eyes. “I do hate you,” she assures him, “just less than I hate most people.”

 That seems to appease him. Except then he says, “Yeah, I love you too, Princess of Darkness,” and she very nearly kicks him into the cart of a flight attendant.

 - - -

 DC is miserable. Fusco holds his bag over his head, feeble protection against the sheet of rain slanting into their faces, while Shaw trudges forward, armed with a frown and her smart phone. Fusco hurries after her as she marches down a line of taxis, looking for the number that matches the one that had been texted to her. She finds it, pulls open the door, and slides into the backseat, Fusco at her heels.

 “Where to?” asks the driver, an enormously muscled man.

 Shaw glares at her phone. Fusco attempts to wipe the rainwater off himself without touching the fuming Persian woman who hasn’t quite given him full space of a seat.  

 The driver tries to meet their eyes in his rearview mirror and repeats himself.

 “At your fucking leisure,” Shaw growls.

 The driver’s lip twitches. “Excuse me?” Fusco hitches his shoulders like he’s about to witness two grizzly bears fight.

 “She isn’t speaking to you, sorry,” Fusco feels the need to clarify. He tries to make the universal gesture for ‘she’s freaking cookoo’ at him via the mirror, but the driver’s knuckles have gone white around the steering wheel, so Fusco shoots fervent glances at Shaw.

 He elbows her, probably at great risk to himself, and hisses, “You can’t keep doing that.”

 Shaw motions angrily at her phone. “She won’t tell me!”

 The driver is either going to kick them out or turn around and wring the neck of the first person he can reach, but instead, the passenger side door opens and a pretty young woman slides into the seat. “Hey, there,” she says with a wide, mischievous smile. “Welcome back to DC.”

 “ _Harper?_ ” Fusco says, unbelievingly.

“We’re headed here, hon.” Harper hands the driver a sheet of paper. Her decisiveness and easy smile apparently moderate the man’s rage, so he takes it.

 Shaw does nothing but glower as they pull away from the curb, a growing sense of misgiving wheedling its way into her gut.


End file.
